Japanese Sugar Plantation Workers

Japanese Sugar Plantation Workers

Hawai’i
Japanese immigrants
sugar
plantation
workers
immigrants
family

This image shows Japanese sugar plantation workers on their home in Wainaku, clutching onto their very young children. Japanese immigrants first arrived in Hawai’i not long before this photograph was taken and akin to the Chinese immigrant’s experience, Japanese men first came alone to look for work. Sugar plantation labour was ideal because the sugar and pineapple trade in Hawai’i was booming especially as transport was evolving during this time period and labourers were in demand. Thereafter, a substantial number of Japanese women immigrated as picture brides and started families in Hawai’i. Evidently in the photograph, living standards were poor as labourers did not get a decent income despite the hours of strenuous work in the fields. Labour pay would also change depending on the labourer’s sex and ethnicity even if an individual were exceptional at their tasks, and a labourer’s life tended to be very mundane and repetitive.

Charles Furneaux (photographer), Wainaku, Hawaii.

Hawaii Alive, Waves of New Migration

http://www.hawaiialive.org/topics.php?sub=Unification+and+Monarchy&Subtopic=47

1890

Emma Azid

Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum
https://www.bishopmuseum.org/

N/A

Visual - photograph

19th century Hawai'i